Fans (and who isn’t, really) of the 1991 original animated Disney classic, ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ should be blown away by the fine-tuned detail on display in the new live action adaptation in theaters now. All of the original Alan Menken songs are present and staged with the aid of computer effects. The costumes evoke the… Continue reading ‘Beauty and the Beast’ – A Painstakingly Live Action Staging of a Classic?
As kids, who didn’t want to see King Kong ten times his size, taking on the humans who would otherwise exploit or kill him, even fighting on the side of the good guys? ‘Kong: Skull Island’ arrives in theaters with all this in mind, in an attempt by production house Legendary and studio Warner Bros. to kick-start a shared universe of… Continue reading ‘Kong: Skull Island’ – The Ultimate B-Movie Experience?
Hugh Jackman has stated that the new Wolverine stand-alone film, ‘Logan,’ will be the final time he portrays the character. It is only fitting that he does so as X-Men comic book movies produced by 20th Century Fox have entered the ‘baroque’ phase of genre evolution, when an art form transcends the confines of its’… Continue reading ‘Logan’ – A Swan Song to the Legend of the Wolverine?
Jordan Peele is a funny guy – as one half of the Comedy Central hit, ‘Key & Peele’ he regularly wrote and participated in skit after skit that skewered racial issues with a populist slant. Now that the two comedians have ended their show on a high note, he sought to create, to paraphrase his own… Continue reading ‘Get Out’ – A Sly Satire of Race Assimilation Wrapped in a Crowd Pleasing Thriller?
The presentation of the Academy Awards is the perfect time to reflect on what the best movies of the previous year really were. As opposed to scrambling out a top ten list that gets heavily influenced by all of the year-end Oscar bait, taking some time to consider, and even revisit favorites a few months… Continue reading Top Ten Films of 2016 – Reinventing Genre, Celebrating Cinema?
The idea of the New England witch is a ripe subject, studied intensely as a shameful part of the American past, immortalized in the oft-produced and taught play, ‘The Crucible,’ but one would be hard pressed to identify an artistic representation on screen fitting of the matter’s resonant themes of religious persecution, feminine repression, and… Continue reading ‘The Witch’ – The Definitive Horror Piece on the American Witch?
The first installment of ‘John Wick’ came out of nowhere, slaying action audiences as a violently over-the-top Keanu Reeves vehicle directed by his ‘Matrix’ stunt double and action choreographer, Chad Stahelski (2nd Unit director on Marvel’s ‘Captain America: Civil War’). While this was his first directorial seat, his vast experience coordinating martial arts, gun fights,… Continue reading ‘John Wick: Chapter 2’ – A Gleefully Over-the-Top Orgy of Violence?
Writer / Director M.Night Shyamalan has had an interesting career. He broke out of the gate with ‘The Sixth Sense,’ a film that ushered in the PG-13 supernatural thriller, and shocked the world with a calculated twist no one saw coming. He followed that film with a series of original movies (‘Unbreakable’, ‘Signs’, ‘The Village’)… Continue reading ‘Split’ – M. Night Shyamalan Back in Top Form?
In the new film ‘Patriots Day,’ filmmaker Peter Berg subjects the audience to terrifying sequences of events that unfolded in April of 2013, the infamous Boston Marathon Bombing and its’ aftermath as authorities worked tirelessly to track down its’ perpetrators. These scenes are extremely effective due to both their impeccably realistic, verite, you-are-there staging, as well as evoking thoughts and… Continue reading ‘Patriots Day’ – A Powerful or Misguided Presentation of a Horrific Event?
Great musicals of the past represent the ultimate Hollywood realization – flights of fancy as works of art that don’t seem to have a place in these cynical modern times. It’s a rare thing when studios back a full blown, star-studded song-and-dance show, and when they do, it’s usually big screen versions of popular Broadway… Continue reading ‘La La Land’ – A Hollywood Dream, Fully, Magnificently Realized?
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